Twitter Q&A: Quick ones because it’s Labor Day weekend and no one’s out there and oh I’m so lonely

Assuming we’re not counting P-Funk and such: Orlando Magic at the arcade. Love Shaq, always, love hearing the NBA Jam announcer guy get all worked up about Scott Skiles. I know most people say “Boomshakalaka!” but to me, “SKILES!” will always be the defining noise associated with the game. On the Sega Genesis I usually used the Supersonics because Shawn Kemp was great for dunking and because in my youth I was randomly a huge Detlef Schrempf fan.

@OGTedBerg Don't you think the time has come to stop packaging cream cheese in brick form and make use of plastic containers?

Who still buys cream cheese in bricks? Is that for baking? I think I’ve purchased cream cheese in a brick like twice in my life and both times in cases of emergency. I can’t remember what the cream-cheese emergency was, but I imagine it was a situation where I had bagels and they were going to go stale if I didn’t eat them soon and the place I went to for cream cheese only had it in bricks. Total disaster.

They’re a total mess, and you usually waste half the cream cheese trying to clean up the edge of the foil with the knife, then ripping the foil, then having to cut back the cream cheese to fit inside the foil. And don’t tell me to just ditch the foil and stick the cream cheese in a sealed container inside my fridge somewhere. Not going to happen. I already do that with butter, and I won’t concede more valuable fridge space and tupperware to a less versatile spread. Just buy the whipped stuff.

@OGTedBerg have you seen the expendables 2, yet? If so, do you consider it the favorite for best picture at the Oscars?

I have, and I hate to say it but I was a bit disappointed. A bunch of stuff blew up and that was certainly sweet, but it was way too much with the cutesy wink-wink nod-nod hey-we-all-used-to-be-action-stars stuff. It’s such a shame to have awesome Jason Statham and awesome Jet Li and most-awesome-of-all Terry Crews in the movie and have them all take a back seat to Sylvester Stallone, who’s a complete caricature at this point and impossible to understand. Bruce Willis can still hang with anyone, but Arnold Schwarzenegger was so, so bad, and not bad in the good way.

If you read with any regularity you know I love action movies. But part of what I most love about action movies — especially on the big screen — is their ability to completely enrapture me so I get lost in the movie and forget everything that’s happening in the real-life world. And I just don’t think that’s going to happen when post-Governorship Arnold Schwarzenegger is in the movie, especially when he’s all “I’LL BE BACK” even though the movie is not Terminator. Schwarzenegger and Stallone are too famously Schwarzenegger and Stallone to be believable characters in the movie. Same thing happens for me with Tom Cruise now.

@OGTedBerg why dose everyone call baxter a 4th OF or career minor league player or a charity case whose only a met cause he is from here

Do people still say those things? They shouldn’t. People definitely said those things before the season, but I suspect those same people now love the hell out of Whitestone Mike. It’s still a small sample, but Baxter’s got over 200 plate appearances of being a very good big-league player now. And he always hit in the Minors, to boot. He should have a role on the Major League team moving forward. What that role will be depends on what players the Mets can bring in this offseason.

@OGTedBerg What's the most poorly thought out movie remake of all time? Also, what would be the worst movie you could possibly remake?

As for the worst movie I’d want to remake? Hmm. I don’t know if I’d want to remake any movie at all, and I think if I did want to remake a movie it would be one I considered good even if most people didn’t. Oh — I got it: Brewster’s Millions. Underrated movie, original premise, timeless theme, could use a contemporary twist.